October 7, 2009

Mental health, no one wants to discuss

Reuel S. Amdur

Welcome home, Jeffrey Arenburg. U.S. federal court judge Richard Aracara ordered his deportation back to Canada after he served time in an American prison for punching a U.S. customs officer in the mouth at the Buffalo border post in November, 2007.

At his trial, he made bizarre remarks about his thoughts being
broadcast.

Arenburg came to public attention in 1995 when he shot and killed
sportscaster Brian Smith in Ottawa.

He has a history of believing that radio stations are broadcasting into
his head and sending his thoughts out to the world, as well as telling people
he knows how they should treat him.
That’s why he killed Smith.

It is also why in 1992 he assaulted the manager of a radio station in
Bridgewater, Nova Scotia.

The year before he also threatened staff at an Ottawa station.

Back in 1998 he went to Parliament Hill to seek out Brian Mulroney and
Joe Clark to complain about thoughts being broadcast into his head.

At the trial for the killing, he was found not guilty by reason of
mental illness and sent to the Penetanguishene Mental Health Centre, a facility
for dangerous offenders who are mentally ill.
In his case, his condition is paranoid schizophrenia.

In 2003, he was allowed to live with his brother in Barrie. He was put on a community treatment order,
requiring him to accept treatment, in his case with anti-psychotic
medication.

Then, in 2006, the mental health review board removed the treatment
order, feeling that he was no longer a significant threat to the community and
that his schizophrenia was in remission.

As a result of the killing, the Ontario legislature passed “Brian’s
Law,” changing the Mental Health Act to make it easier to hospitalize people
who may be dangerous and providing for community treatment orders; either take
the medicine or go back to the hospital and have it given involuntarily.

Previously the law required that the danger presented by the person be
“imminent,” but that word was removed due to the efforts of Liberal MPP Richard
Patten, who consulted with former NDP leader Michael Cassidy, the father of a
schizophrenic man.

Another change in the legislation means that the police no longer need
to view the grounds for taking a person to hospital for assessment. They can act on the accounts of other people
who have seen the evidence.

Removing the word “imminent” may have made all the difference in the
world in this case if it had been done prior to the killing.

An Ottawa agency staff person encountered Arenburg in a
men’s shelter and observed his dysfunctional behaviour. He arranged for his delivery to the Royal
Ottawa Hospital, but the hospital could not hold him under the law as it then
existed. If his danger was not
“imminent,” the community soon found out that it was in any case significant.

The question of how to treat people suffering from mental illness who
refuse treatment has been a difficult one to resolve.

Do we give them the right to refuse treatment, and if so are we doing
them a favour?

A woman I know had a schizophrenic son who refused treatment and was
living in the gutter. Finally, he got
into treatment at what was then the Queen Street Mental Health Centre.

“Mother,” he told her, “I don’t ever want to live that way again.” Then, he was assigned a different
psychiatrist who decided that he was not schizophrenic but depressed instead.
His medication was changed and soon he was back in the gutter.

In this case, society chose to accept his wishes when he was delusional
but to reject what he wanted for himself when he was “normal,” in
remission. This emphasis on giving the
mentally ill choice has resulted in the transferring of responsibility for more
and more of them from the medical system to the correctional system, from
hospitals to prisons. That change is
illustrated in the current case.

When Arenburg was released to his brother, Alana Kainz, Smith’s widow,
expressed serious misgivings, feeling that he would always remain a
danger.

She was right and the experts were wrong. Their release of Arenburg from the
constraints of the mental health system in 2006 was a serious error.

On his return to Canada, he is “free,” with no prior control on his
behaviour. On his return, he is not
constrained to take his anti-psychotic medication. He has a history of going off his
medicines.

We await his next encounter with the legal system before he can again
receive involuntary treatment.

Reuel S. Amdur is
a freelance writer based across the river from Ottawa.